Her Dementia

How cold it was. My toes clutched the edge of the shingle like the stiff hand of the dead clasps a bible in a stone grave.  A gelid wind tore a screeching euphony from the night and sent it wailing up the cathedral towers to breach my ears and torment my mind. Her face flashed definitely with the lightning, lingered momentarily in the leaden clouds then faded with storms shifting grey patterns like a portrait sinking into murky waters.

The sickness was quick and had transformed her in a matter of weeks, from a loving mother, to a twisted demon set on eradicating all her creations.  Her diminished memories and uncontrollable rage had cruelly reinvented her. Death had infused in her a horrid stare, the devil had had buried his poisoned blade deep in her mind.

Thunder shook and the roof tiles chattered like large clay teeth. I knew I had only moments left and squinting through the weather I saw movement on the stone balcony. Lighting flashed and a cruel figure descended the terrace, animated, the white gown flashing a show of her previous movements with the raw fulmination. Thick strands of wet grey hair caged her yellow eyes and I stepped blindly to the roofs edge. Another fork of lighting split the sky behind her, the blade dazzled in her hand. She stared not into my eyes, but to my left… at nothing but the darkness. As the knife rose up, her head twitched sharply and her bilious eyes caught mine. Her mouth snapped into a leer and she cried the moan of a psychotic man.

As I fell, a final bolt burst from the night sky and painted my mind white, forever.

A Deacon found the two bodies the following morning amongst a wash of torn tree limbs. The woman’s buckled shape enclosed in shallow quag of blood, the thin wedge of blade tip protruding from between her shoulder blades like a steel peak in some marbled red valley. The young man lay on his back facing the sky. Clots of black dirt cased his staring eyes. In his hand he gripped an open silver locket.

 The Flecked sepia faces of a mother and her son smiled contentedly within the sterling ovals.